See, every other paid Fox News Analyst that day had been sturdily defending the bill. Not the Judge:

Napolitano: She's gonna bankrupt the Republican Party and
the state of Arizona. Look at what happened to the Republicans in
California with the proposition --

Cavuto: What happens?

Napolitano: Ah, Hispanics -- who have a natural home in the
Republican Party because they are socially conservative -- will flee in
droves. She's also gonna bankrupt her state, because no insurance
company will provide coverage for this. And for all the lawsuits that
will happen -- for all the people that are wrongfully stopped -- her
budget will be paying for it. Her budget will be paying the legal bills
of the lawyers who sue on behalf of those that were stopped.

This will be a disaster for Arizona -- to say nothing of the fact
that it's so unconstitutional that I predict a federal judge will
prevent Arizona from enforcing it as soon as they attempt to do so. That
will probably be tomorrow.

Judge Napolitano is an interesting mixed bag of an analyst. Sometimes
he's just a flat-out nutcase. At other times, he's a sharp and
insightful guy. This was definitely one of the latter occasions.

I think what Arturo Venegas, Jr., former chief of the Sacramento
Police Department and project director of the Law Enforcement Engagement
Initiative, had to say bears repeating:

“The passage of SB 1070 in Arizona is a catastrophe for
community policing, with repercussions that will be felt by law
enforcement officials across the country. The actions of the state
legislature and Gov. Brewer are an unfunded mandate to Arizona police
and are clearly rooted in concerns over politics, not public safety. No
police officer should have to put arresting an undocumented immigrant
over catching a violent criminal to avoid a lawsuit, and no victim or
witness of a crime should be afraid to report it because he or she will
be deported if he or she speaks to police.

“This law will drive a wedge between police and the immigrant and
Latino communities not only in Arizona, but around the country. Trust
between law enforcement professionals and the communities they serve is
the cornerstone of community policing, and departments across the
country have been working for decades to develop strong relationships
with the community. Latinos and immigrants across America have been
watching Arizona with fear, and will retreat deeper into the shadows now
that this bill has become law.

“Today is a very sad day for the majority of us in law enforcement
who believe that effective policing is based on community trust. I hope
the federal government will heed this wake-up call and take long-overdue
action for comprehensive immigration reform to protect our communities,
and I am deeply disappointed in Governor Brewer and the Arizona
legislature for passing this dangerous, costly, and ineffective law.”

It's important to understand that this kind of approach means that
real violent crime is going to increase in Arizona. That's certainly
what has happened in Maricopa County, under the regime of Crazy Sheriff Joe Arpaio, whose approach to emphasizing immigration enforcement has served as the inspiration for this bill. As the conservative Goldwater Institute found [PDF], such an approach meant skyrocketing rates in real crime:

The Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office is responsible for
vitally important law-enforcement functions in one of the largest
counties in the nation. It defines its core missions as law-enforcement
services, support services, and detention.

MCSO falls seriously short of fulfilling its mission in all three
areas. Although MCSO is adept at self-promotion and is an unquestionably
“tough” law-enforcement agency, under its watch violent crime rates recently have soared, both in absolute terms and relative to other jurisdictions.
It has diverted resources away from basic law-enforcement functions to
highly publicized immigration sweeps, which are ineffective in policing
illegal immigration and in reducing crime generally, and to extensive
trips by MCSO officials to Honduras for purposes that are nebulous at
best. Profligate spending on those diversions helped produce a financial
crisis in late 2007 that forced MCSO to curtail or reduce important
law-enforcement functions.

In terms of support services, MCSO has allowed a huge backlog of
outstanding warrants to accumulate, and has seriously disadvantaged
local police departments by closing satellite booking facilities. MCSO’s
detention facilities are subject to costly lawsuits for excessive use
of force and inadequate medical services. Compounding the substantive
problems are chronically poor record-keeping and reporting of
statistics, coupled with resistance to public disclosure.

Meanwhile, the tiny handful of remaining Arizona Hispanic Republicans issued a statement on the new law that blamed President Obama. Because, you see, he hasn't managed to pass comprehensive immigration reform.

Never mind that this bill was entirely a creature of the Republican Party. For some people, Denial is a state as big as Arizona.

Sara Robinson has worked as an editor or columnist for several national magazines, on beats as varied as sports, travel, and the Olympics; and has contributed to over 80 computer games for EA, Lucasfilm, Disney, and many other companies. A native of California's High Sierra, she spent 20 years in Silicon Valley before moving to Vancouver, BC in 2004. She currently is pursuing an MS in Futures Studies at the University of Houston. You can reach her at srobinson@enginesofmischief.com.